This month, AJSLP published six articles on Interprofessional Collaborative Practice (IPCP). This is a very trending topic right now across health professions. Recent grads may recognize the terminology, because many of them have received Interprofessional Education (IPE) while completing their coursework, where students from different professional programs (e.g. SLP, PT, OT, Nursing, Education) learn together and work togetherearly on.

For the school-based SLP, taking the lead to develop a more interprofessional environment requires consideration of many moving pieces. It’s not just what you’re doing. It’s what the teachers, PTs, OTs, social workers, school psychologists, principals, administrators, and parents are doing or willing to do, as well (yay for trying to move a mountain, lol!) Just because it’s tough to implement in some settings, and tough to try something new, doesn’t mean it’s not doable, though. A single PT–SLP pair, for example, can make a substantial difference if they simply start identifying and modeling better collaboration. Or one SLP–Reading Specialist duo. Or one SLP plus SPED teacher working together to improve AAC implementation…

On to the articles—so, I won’t review each of these articles in-depth, because they don’t fit the TISLP “empirical research” requirement. This set is more like a series of tutorials or perspective pieces. Nonetheless, I’ll give you a little guidance on what’s contained within each, so you know what you may want to prioritize:

This one reviews the literature on IPCP and students with severe disabilities. It’s the most dense of the series, because it considers a theoretical model behind IPE and provides snippets of information from tons of studies. It may be the most overwhelming of the set, unless you’re ready to think about IPCP more deeply.

This one’s all about how to collaborate among professionals for literacy instruction. It provides a really rich set of evidence-based treatment options, in addition to discussing how they can be implemented across professions. So if you aren’t an SLP who currently feels as involved as you could/should be in supporting your students in literacy growth, this is a great article.

This one reads like a story—an individual case of IPCP for a child with a severe disability. It walks you through “Mary’s Case” from birth to adulthood—so no matter what your current setting, there should be a portion of the story you identify with.